


Living Conditions

by DeHeerKonijn, Roselightfairy



Series: like, comment, subscribe [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, College, Cultural Differences, Elf Culture & Customs, Gen, Hobbit Culture & Customs, One Night Stands, Roommates, Sexual Harassment, Social Awkwardness, Uncomfortable Clubbing Experiences, background Legolas/Gimli, bi/pan character, takes place in DHK's modern Middle-earth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29277267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/pseuds/DeHeerKonijn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Coming to the multicultural mosaic of Minas Tirith University can be overwhelming, especially for a sheltered elf without much experience outside Eryn Lasgalen. But having a worldly hobbit roommate willing to take you under her wing makes everything that much easier.
Relationships: Original Female Character & Original Female Character
Series: like, comment, subscribe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2183949
Comments: 25
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DeHeerKonijn has long had an ongoing modern AU for Legolas, Gimli, and the rest of the Fellowship . . . and sometimes the two of us get so inspired by talking about worldbuilding details that mini-stories emerge. Over the last year, one of the most prominent mini-stories has been of Poppy and Ros, a hobbit and elf who end up as roommates and have college adventures together. This story is a (n ongoing) collection of their escapades. They came into existence one year ago today and we have both written bits and pieces about them over the last year - and finally decided to honor them on their birthday by sharing them. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rostinnariel arrives at MTU and meets her new roommate.

Rostinnariel finished tucking in her covers and frowned down at her newly-made bed. She’d never been all that good at this sort of thing, but she couldn’t help noticing, now that she’d put the finishing touches on her side of the dorm room, how different it looked from all those pictures you saw in magazines or on Pinterest. She’d tried to pick tasteful bedding, but had eschewed the throw pillows - who really used those, anyway? - and the extra blankets - she never got cold at night. But now that she was here, her bed looked weird without them, nothing like those pictures of what a college room was supposed to look like.

She sat down on it anyway, leaning against the wall and tucking her knees against her chest. She’d taken the side closest to the window, hoping her roommate wouldn’t mind, but the window was much smaller than the ones in her room back home. Her walls looked bare without the usual view of trees she had in Eryn Lasgalen, and she realized she should have gotten something to hang on them.

She wished, too, that she hadn’t been in such a hurry for her parents to go home. She should have let them take her out to dinner like they’d offered.

Lost in her thoughts, Rostinnariel missed the footsteps in the hall until there was a tap on the door and then it was swinging open.

A head poked in - curly red hair, a round, freckled face - and much closer to the ground than Rostinnariel had thought to expect. A hobbit. “Hello?” the hobbit said, and then her eyes lit on Rostinnariel on her bed. “Oh, are you my roommate?”

Rostinnariel removed her arms from her knees and straightened self-consciously. “I think so,” she said. “You got switched at the last minute?”

“Yeah - they just told me this morning.” The hobbit looked around the room. “For all their commitment to diversity, they really don’t think about hobbit sizes in mixed dorm rooms, do they?” She shrugged. “Oh well. I’m Poppy. It’s nice to meet you!”

“You too. I’m Rostinnariel.” What was the custom at moments like these? Rostinnariel unfolded from her bed and held out a hand for a handshake - but Poppy surprised her by pulling her into a hug. 

Rostinnariel didn’t think she’d ever been hugged by a non-elf before; she stiffened in surprise, and then hoped she wasn’t hurting her roommate’s feelings, but Poppy withdrew before she could raise her arms to return the hug. “Ros-tin” - 

“Rostinnariel.”

“Rostinnariel,” Poppy repeated slowly. “I’ll get the hang of it eventually.” She leaned out into the hallway. “Hey, guys! You can come in now!”

That was all the warning Rostinnariel got before at least four other hobbits swarmed into the room, heavily laden with bins and bags, which they tossed down on the other bed.

“Oh - I hope you don’t mind that I took this one,” she said, realizing. “I can switch if you want; I just, I like to be near the window.”

“No problem,” Poppy said. “I hope you don’t mind a little chaos for a minute, though. This is my mom and dad, my brother Kali, and my sister Clover.” She pointed at one hobbit after the other, and Rostinnariel blinked, trying to remember the names, but even their faces instantly blended together before her eyes. For the second time, she wished she’d let her parents stay.

The hobbits set about decorating Poppy’s side of the room with great enthusiasm. Rostinnariel hesitated, wondering if she should offer her help, but they worked so effortlessly together that she couldn’t help feeling she would only be in the way, with her long limbs. Poppy’s parents made her bed; her siblings separated out her clothes; Poppy herself climbed on the stool that Rostinnariel had found in the corner - now she knew why it was here - and began hanging things on her walls.

Once they had finished, her side of the room looked just like one of those pictures in the magazines. Rostinnariel’s own side felt even barer in comparison, and her stomach squirmed.

When they had finished, Poppy’s mother put her arm around Poppy’s shoulders. “Are you ready for dinner?” she asked.

“Sounds great.” Poppy turned to Rostinnariel. “We’re going to go out to eat. Do you want to come? Unless you have plans with your own family, of course.”

Rostinnariel looked at all of them - the loud, boisterous family - torn between anxiety and strange yearning. But at last she shook her head. “No, I don’t want to get in the way of your family time. But I hope you have fun.”

“We will. I’ll see you later, Ros - Rosti” - 

“Rostinnariel.”

“Rostinnariel,” Poppy repeated. “I promise I’ll get it eventually. Most hobbits with really long names get nicknames, so I’m kind of an airhead about anything with more than a couple of syllables. My brother can back me up.”

“It’s true,” put in the brother, who had been introduced as Kali, right? “She’s the one who gave me my nickname when she was a kid, so she got started early.”

The words came out before Rostinnariel even realized what she was saying. “Well - maybe you could give me one too? If you wanted.”

What was she saying? She’d never gone by a nickname - well, not counting her parents’ pet names, which were mostly completely different from her own name. But most non-elves _did_ have shorter names, and she cringed at the thought of having to repeat her name five times in every conversation. This was what college was about, right? Trying new things?

“Are you sure?” said Poppy.

Rostinnariel wasn’t, but she nodded anyway. She didn’t have the slightest clue how to go about shortening her own name, and if Poppy was such an expert at it, surely she would be a good person to trust.

“Well, I guess instinctively I’d call you Ros,” said Poppy. “Does that sound okay?”

“Ros,” Rostinnariel repeated. It was _much_ shorter than her given name, but - that meant it would be harder to mispronounce, right? And it felt - sort of college-y. Sort of fun. “Yes - yes, that sounds good.”

“Great,” said Poppy. “I’ll see you later, then, Ros!” And with a wave and a chorus of goodbyes, they were out the door, leaving the room feeling emptier than before in the wake of their energy.

“Ros,” Rostinnariel repeated to herself once they were gone and the room was quiet. “Ros.”

No. Not bad at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poppy and Ros settle into a routine - and finally become real friends.

Their days developed a routine fairly quickly. Ros was an early riser and Poppy showered in the evenings, so Ros would use the bathroom first in the morning while Poppy was still sleeping, then get dressed while Poppy did her makeup. Ros didn’t tend to eat breakfast, but Poppy would always eat a granola bar in the room before going up to eat on main campus - she claimed she needed the fuel for the walk. They’d go to their classes, have lunch in the caf, study in the library - actually, Ros didn’t really know what Poppy did during the day.

She supposed it was more accurate to say that she was the one who had developed the routine. It was a tiny sense of safety and security in the general crowded overwhelm of the school: sitting in class with so many different people who hadn’t known her all her life. Noticing all the weird things about humans and dwarves and hobbits that she’d never paid attention to before: how they would snack in class, sleep in the library, bump into each other in the hallways.

Ros found that she was clumsier here herself than she had been at home; she didn’t have the easy sense of the space around her like in the forested roads of Lasgalen, and she found herself tripping over her own long legs in an attempt to get out of the way of dwarves moving so purposefully down the halls. She felt constantly off-balance, and the routine was something stable, something she could cling to: the quiet and wide windows of the library after class, the elf who worked the reference desk and would help her navigate the research databases for homework assignments, who seemed to understand how out of her depth Ros felt, even if she didn’t say anything about it.

After finishing her homework, she would head back to the room, and would almost always be back before Poppy. Her roommate seemed to be diving into the social life of college with an ease Ros couldn’t decide if she envied, but no matter what she was coming home from, she’d always greet Ros with a smile and a cheerful invitation to come with her to the community kitchen to make dinner. Sometimes she would come, sometimes not - claiming she’d already eaten, even if she hadn’t, so she wouldn’t hurt Poppy’s feelings - but the invitation was extended every day, regardless of what Ros had said the day before.

But today, something was different. Today, when Ros came home from the library, Poppy was already there, sitting on her bed with headphones in, staring fixedly down at her phone as if to find the secrets of the universe there. She didn’t even look up when Ros came in.

Ros hesitated in the doorway, wondering if she should go away . . . but no, that might be even worse than coming in. She shut the door behind her very quietly and went to sit on her own bed. Closer to Poppy’s level, she saw that her roommate’s eyes were red.

“Hey,” she tried, but Poppy didn’t respond. Maybe with her headphones in, she hadn’t heard.

Why was she so bad at this all of a sudden? If this were one of her friends back home, Ros would have known what to do; now she felt just as unstable as she did in the crowded hallways: an autumn leaf tossed in a brisk wind. But she couldn’t just do nothing.

Food. Hobbits liked food; she had roomed with Poppy long enough now to know that. She went to her side of the closet and rummaged until she found the care package her parents had sent her recently with some of her favorites from home, and she still had a little bag of her father’s honey-acorn cookies. She pulled it out now, mustered all her courage, and knelt in front of Poppy’s bed.

Poppy pulled out her earbuds and looked down at her. “What’s up?” she said hoarsely.

“I thought” - Ros offered the bag. “Do you want a cookie? My dad made them; they’re my favorites when I’m having a bad day.”

Poppy sniffed and gave her a weak smile. “Sure, thank you.”

They munched in silence for a moment, Ros still kneeling on the floor. “Do you want to talk about it?” she ventured at last.

Poppy scrubbed a hand across her eyes, smearing her makeup a little. “It’s nothing, really. I just - I didn’t do very well on my stats midterm.”

“Oh.” Ros looked down at her half-eaten cookie. Her first midterm wasn’t until next week, and her history teacher “didn’t believe in them,” so she only had two to fret about. “I’m sorry,” she offered.

“It’s okay,” Poppy said, looking up bravely and trying to smile.

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Ros. Poppy had done so much for her over the last few weeks, always friendly and smiling. She wondered how much of that had been a front out of generosity.

Poppy looked down at her again and blinked. “You can come sit up here if you want,” she said. “You don’t have to be on the floor.”

“Oh! Thank you.” Ros didn’t quite know what to do with herself; next to the hobbit she felt too long, almost stretched-out, but . . . if this were one of her friends at home, she reminded herself, she would have known what to do. Tentatively, she draped one arm over Poppy’s shoulders, tense and ready to pull away - but Poppy didn’t even flinch in surprise like Ros had at the first hug, but just nestled into her side.

“I thought you didn’t do this,” she said. “Hugging, I mean.”

Ros’s cheeks heated. “No, I - I do. I just” - She laughed at herself, just a little. “You may have noticed this by now, Poppy, but I’m very bad at this.”

“Bad at what?” Poppy was making herself comfortable against Ros’s side, so Ros released the tension in her arm and let herself relax. It took a moment to accustom themselves to the difference in their sizes, but Ros was surprised to realize it felt just as comfortable as draping herself over a friend from home.

She waved her free hand. “This. College. Meeting new people. The whole - social life - thing. You know.”

Poppy scoffed a little. “Well, we’re all bad at something, aren’t we? I seem to be failing math.”

Ros hesitated, and then, before she could talk herself out of it, she said, “Math’s a stupid subject anyway.”

Poppy let out a surprised little laugh, so sudden that she snorted. Ros giggled despite herself, and then clapped a hand over her mouth - but that only made Poppy laugh harder, and soon Ros couldn’t help but join in. They leaned against each other, a limp pile of nerves and laughter and cookie crumbs, and when they had calmed down, Poppy twisted her head up to look at Ros.

“It really is, isn’t it?” she said conversationally, and that set them off again.

When they settled down again, something felt different. Warmer, easier - like some barrier had been broken. Ros caught her breath and felt like she was filling her lungs for the first time since she’d arrived here.

“Hmm,” Poppy said. “Those cookies were great, but now I’m starving for a real meal.” She sat up and brushed her hair out of her face. “On a scale of one to Balrog, how awful do I look?”

Ros tilted her head to the side. “Arwen Undomiel,” she declared at last.

Poppy grinned at her. “Let me just go get this gunk off my face,” she said, waving at her running eye makeup. “Then, community kitchen? These meal halls might be fine for people who haven’t been to Little Shire, but my baby sister can already cook better than the food they have there.”

Ros nodded, shaking the rest of the cookies back into her bag and leaving it on her nightstand. “Sounds perfect.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poppy doesn't realize how much her not coming home has freaked out her new roommate. They agree to develop a system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story assumes elf biology according to Tolkien's Laws and Customs Among the Eldar essay - and imagines that elves would be pretty freaked out by the casual-sex culture of college.

Sunlight skimmed through the blinds of the room at an unfamiliar angle, filtering through Poppy's closed eyelids and waking her with a start. She wasn't generally an early riser, not by nature, but morning-afters were an exception - she'd always had an acute sense of when she wasn't where she was supposed to be. And, she realized, this meant she’d been here long enough that her dorm room felt like _where she was supposed to be_.

That was an oddly pleasant thought, and she smiled before yawning and wriggling out from under Hild’s arm to sit up.

"Morning." Hild cracked her eyes open a slit. "Are you leaving already? It's Saturday."

"I know," Poppy sighed. "But I'm awake now and I won't be able to go back to sleep until I've had breakfast. Want to come?"

Hild yawned. "Nah, too tired - I'll pass. Text me sometime?"

"For sure." Poppy struggled out from beneath the covers and found her clothes from last night. That was another thing about morning-afters: clothes were never as comfortable the second time you put them on, especially after an evening of sweaty dancing. She could use a shower as well as breakfast.

She dressed quickly, grabbed all her things - keys, ID, phone, purse - from last night, and called out a last goodbye as she slipped out the door.

She checked her phone on the walk back to her dorm. For some reason, she hadn't heard it buzzing - but it must have, because she had six text messages and two calls, all from Ros.

_Hey, I'm just wondering if you were planning to come home?_

_You okay?_

_I don't want to bother you if you're having fun, but are you coming home?_

[Missed call]

_Poppy?_

_Text me when you get this_

_Do you need help?_

[Missed call]

Poppy frowned. The first of the messages had been sent at two in the morning, and the rest, it seemed, spanned the time between then and now. She considered calling Ros back, but she was close enough to their room that she figured it would be better to just get home and explain there.

She yawned again as she made her way down the hall and to their room. But before she could begin to fumble with her keys, the door flew open.

Frozen with her hand still half in the air, Poppy could hardly even register what had happened before she was engulfed in elf. She registered dark hair, floral-patterned shirt, long arms - but that was all she could process as Ros swooped down on her and hugged her so hard that her feet left the ground.

“I thought I heard you coming,” she said, her voice as frantic as though Poppy had been missing for a year. “I just wasn’t sure - I’m so glad you’re back.”

“Whoa, whoa!” Poppy hugged her back, still blinking in bewilderment. “Let a hobbit breathe. Ros - what’s the matter? I just got your texts; is something wrong?”

“What?” Ros set her down and backed up a step, blushing. “I didn’t - I was worried about you. I texted Cheery and they said you’d gone to Hild’s, but I didn’t - usually you come back, and” - 

“Wait.” _Usually you come back._ It was early for this kind of piecing-together-information, but Poppy thought about the first text that had come at two a.m., around the time she would usually get home and see Ros curled up with her computer or a book. “Were you waiting up for me all night?”

Ros gazed at her with wide, earnest eyes. “Of course.”

“Oh.” _Of course._ “Do you wait up every night?” It would explain why Ros was usually so quick to put away her things and crawl into bed when Poppy got home; she had assumed her roommate was just a night owl and their schedules happened to coincide, but . . .

“I do more than just _wait,”_ Ros said. “But I know that’s not what you meant, and . . . yes.” She backed up and perched on the edge of her bed, her hands clasped in front of her. “It’s not a big deal; I don’t need a lot of sleep. I just like to make sure you’re home safe.”

Poppy frowned at her. From someone else, she would have chalked this up to the usual hobbit stereotypes; she was used to being underestimated. But Ros wasn’t the type to think that sort of thing. “I can take care of myself, you know,” she said.

“I know, and I trust you. It’s not that.” Ros twisted her hands. “It’s just - I know you all don’t do things the same way as elves, but I’ve heard - things. About parties. And the kinds of things that can happen, and I just - you know, if I don’t hear from you, I don’t know what might be happening. And I can’t help getting worried, especially last night. You hadn’t stayed out all night before, and I didn’t know - if you’d be safe.”

“Right.” Poppy had learned it in high school sex ed, and Ros had mentioned obliquely, but it was hard to remember sometimes that sex was different for elves. Was - marriage, if consensual, and a death sentence if not. It was one of those things that was so starkly different that a lot of Poppy’s classmates had found it hard to believe. Poppy herself might have been inclined to doubt, if not for living with Ros. “Is that why you’re so nervous to go clubbing with me?”

Ros nodded, her eyes downcast.

“Okay.” Poppy tossed her purse onto her bed. “Well, I can be sure to always check in with you when I go home with anyone, how about that? So you don’t have to stay up?”

“I don’t mind it,” Ros protested. “But - yes, it would be good to know.”

“Okay,” Poppy repeated. “We can definitely work out a system.” She stretched again, and then made a face as she raised her arms over her head. “But I need a shower, and then something to eat. Work it out over breakfast?”

* * *

"Hey, cupcake."

Ros wondered how she would ever explain to anyone in the future why the word _cupcake_ alone was enough to make her smile, the strange coursing combination of affection and relieved letdown. "Hi, cream pie."

The music on the other end of the phone was loud even through the poor connection, occasionally interspersed with shouts or laughter, but she could still hear Poppy snort. "Going into poetry now?"

"I am elf," said Ros as solemnly as she could. "It's what I do."

Poppy giggled. "Fair enough. Anyway, I'm just checking in. I'm going to Esk’s tonight; don't wait up for me!"

"You're all good?" Ros couldn't help checking, just like she did every time Poppy used the all-clear code word. "Safe and sober and everything?"

"All good," Poppy confirmed. "I'll text you in the morning."

"Please do." She'd eventually, uneasily settled into their system of code words - she'd even reached the point where she could sleep after getting the confirming phone call - but something in Ros still never quite relaxed until she knew Poppy was safe the next morning. It was one of those hangups that, for all Poppy promised her things really were different for mortals, Ros could never fully let go of. Indeed, she didn't want to let go of it.

Still, though, she smiled for the next few words. "Have fun tonight."

"Oh, believe me, I will." Poppy blew a loud kiss into the phone, then hung up.

Ros set her phone on the nightstand with a sigh and stretched out her legs under the covers. Now that she'd gotten her call, she could settle in for the night - and revel just a little in having the room to herself.

She switched off the reading lamp, nestled into her pillows, and closed her eyes.

* * *

"Hey, babe."

"Hey." Ros covered the speaker for a moment and mouthed "Just a minute" to Estinnu and Ferieth. They both nodded, setting down their cards for a second, and Ros stepped out into the hall. It was earlier than Poppy usually called to check in, and while she hadn't given the emergency signal, it wasn't the all-clear, either. "How are things?"

"Pretty good." Poppy had clearly ducked into the bathroom or something; the music was quieter than usual but echoing strangely. "I just wanted to check in. Cheery and I are hitting it off really well with these dwarves, and we're about to do a round of shots."

"Ah." Ros fought down the immediate, quelling urge to protest. Poppy could take care of herself, after all - and anyway, her alcohol tolerance was beyond belief. "Shall I call you in an hour then, just to check in?"

"Whatever makes you happy." Poppy laughed. "Alcohol will be consumed, and I may not be coming home tonight, but . . ."

"I'll check in," Ros said. "You know I will."

"Call whenever you want to go to bed," Poppy said. "And if you have to haul my drunk ass home over your shoulder, I probably won't hate you for it too much in the morning."

Ros laughed to hide the anxiety, but she thought a little of it might have come through anyway. "I'll call," she promised. "Talk to you in an hour?"

"Talk to you then."

* * *

"Hey, sweets."

Ros sat bolt upright in bed at the last word, the rush of adrenaline banishing the pleasant drowsiness of before. Poppy's voice was the same affectionate coo as ever, and even Ros herself wouldn't have noticed the difference - but the word told all.

"Hey," she said. "Where are you?"

"I just started talking to this _great_ guy at Hogbottom’s," Poppy said. The stress on _great_ was just enough to dispel any doubt that she'd mixed up the code words. "He wants me to stay over, but I told him I'd have to check in with you first."

"Right," Ros said. She swung the blankets off to the side, already looking for her clothes. "Do you want an excuse to leave, or should I come meet you?"

"Oh, you should _totally_ come party with us!" Poppy's voice was just a little too enthusiastic; internally, Ros let out a sigh of relief that this would never happen when there was an elf on the other end of the line. She couldn't have feigned that kind of carefree attitude; it was a relief that on her end she could be as honest as she needed to and know she wouldn't be overheard. "It'd be so much fun!"

"Definitely." Ros stood up, debating whether she should get dressed. She had a cloak from home; she rarely wore it in the city but it would be less weird than pajamas – and faster than changing entirely. She wrapped it around herself, barely remembering to grab her keys and her purse, wondering how fast she could still run. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ros goes clubbing for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for sexual harassment and sensory overload in this chapter.

“Hold still.”

Ros dropped her hand when Poppy slapped the back of her wrist lightly, but did not stop trying to crane her neck to see what her roommate was doing in the mirror. Even standing on their footstool, Poppy was too short to be fully visible over Ros’s head, her cloud of red curls all that Ros could see without looking behind her.

“This will look great, you’ll see,” Poppy said. “I may never have worked with elf hair before, but I know what I’m doing, I promise.” She laughed, giving Ros a playful nudge with her elbow. “You’d think you’d never had your hair done before.”

 _That_ wasn’t true, but it had been since before she’d started at MTU. Ros and her friends had braided each other’s hair at home, but Poppy was the first and only person she’d felt comfortable enough with here to allow that kind of intimacy. And anyway, she’d never had her hair done like this before – teased and sprayed and pinned. It felt like a great deal of effort for something Ros wasn’t even sure she wanted to do in the first place. “Poppy . . .”

“Done.” Poppy gave one last tug to a pin in Ros’s hair, then hopped down from her footstool. “You aren’t having second thoughts on me now, are you?”

“No,” Ros said uncertainly. Did it count as a second thought when you hadn’t been sure from the beginning? “I just, I’ve never . . .”

Poppy moved around to stand next to her, grabbing her hand as it automatically twitched up to her hair and squeezing it until Ros looked at her. She had to look down, but in the months since they’d started rooming together she had learned the right way to look down at Poppy without looking _down_ at her. “I know,” she said. “But it’ll be okay. I’ve been to a lot of these now. I know how they work, and I’ll stick with you the whole time. You have to try it once, Ros.” She grinned. “For the experience.”

The experience. That was what Ros had wanted, after all, when she’d come to MTU. To live with people who weren’t elves for a while, to get out of her bubble and see more of how other people lived. And sometimes that meant college parties, even if she’d heard enough stories about the kinds of things that happened there to scare her senseless. “The experience,” she echoed, and swallowed.

Poppy squeezed her hand again and then moved her footstool around, climbing back up so that she could see herself in the mirror next to Ros. These rooms hadn’t been made with hobbit size in mind, but Poppy kept remarkably chipper about it. She patted her own hair, tilted her head to the side, dabbed away a smear at the corner of one eye. “Perfect,” she pronounced. “Are you sure you don’t want me to do your makeup?”

Ros shook her head. She’d never understood the appeal before, though watching Poppy do her own had made it make more sense – the bold lines she drew around her eyes, the long false eyelashes, the red lips. It was almost like watching an artist paint on a canvas. Still, even looking at Poppy’s eyes for too long made her own water. “No, thank you.”

“That’s okay,” Poppy said. “One thing at a time. Anyway, you’re eye-catching enough without it. Your hair is perfect, by the way. You’re welcome.”

“Thank you.” Ros tilted her head this way and that, examining it. It was so different from what she was used to; she still wasn’t sure she liked it, but she could try it. For the experience.

“Okay, I think we’re both done,” said Poppy, stepping down from her stool again. “You ready?”

Ros followed her out of the bathroom, but when they reached the door to their dorm, she stopped. A wave of panic washed over her; her mouth went dry and she couldn’t take another step. “Poppy,” she said. “I don’t – I don’t know if I can do this. The kinds of things they say about these parties” –

“I know,” Poppy said. She grabbed Ros’s hand again; her own was nearly as small as a child’s, but the grasp was still hard, reassuring. “But we’ll only stay for half an hour, okay? If you’re not having fun after that, we’ll leave. Just give it half an hour.”

“You’ll stay close to me?” Ros knew she sounded petulant; some part of her was even embarrassed about it, but – she knew she could ask Poppy. Knew she’d be safe.

“The whole time,” Poppy promised. “I won’t take my eyes off you for a second.”

Ros took a deep breath, trying to center herself, to calm that cold wave in her stomach. She focused on the grasp of Poppy’s hand, warm and strong and vital, and on that promise. Inhale, exhale. _For the experience._

“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

* * *

Ros could hear the music before the club even came into view.

At first it was just the beat: a steady thumping pulse that she couldn’t so much hear as feel, vibrating somewhere inside her. A few more steps and she could hear the rhythm on top of it, though it wasn’t much of a rhythm, really. Maybe she’d been spoiled by the music programs back home, but she still hadn’t come around to the appeal of the simple repetitive drumbeats underlying most of the top 40 hits on the radio.

Poppy didn’t seem to notice yet, but only a few more steps and Ros could hear the tune - if tune you could call it, so swallowed up as it was in that heart-stealing pulse of bass. She couldn’t feel her own heartbeat anymore, and they were still a block away. Her apprehension hadn’t lessened one bit; if it was so bad this far away, what would it be like inside?

“Poppy,” she said, tapping her roommate’s shoulder to be heard above the noise. She could barely hear her own voice.

“Hmm?” Poppy turned to face her, frowning at whatever she saw in Ros’s face. “What’s up?”

“That music - that’s coming from where we’re going, isn’t it?”

“Music? You can hear - _oh_.” One of Poppy’s hands flew to her mouth. “I didn’t even think; your ears are so much more sensitive than mine. Okay, that’s okay.” She snapped open her purse and dug around in a pocket for a moment, emerging with a little plastic bag. Ros couldn’t work out what was in it at first: two brightly colored pieces of something foamy that gave when she squeezed it. “Earplugs,” said Poppy. “I’m mostly used to the music by now, but it was a lot for me at first, too. You just put them in your ears and they’ll muffle the sound.”

“Muffle the sound?” Ros had never needed to do that before. In an elf-dominant home like Eryn Lasgalen, everything was built with their sensitive ears in mind. But the bass still jolted through her ears, and she had promised Poppy that she would go to this party . . . Tentatively she tore the package open and pressed the little foam bits into her ears.

She actually stumbled once they were fully in. The feeling of sudden blockage there, where she had never felt it before, and the blunting of all sound - as though the point had been filed off - threw her off balance, and for a moment she forgot how to stand. But she caught herself on Poppy’s shoulder, and her roommate let her brace herself for a moment while she found her equilibrium again.

“Better?” Poppy asked, and her voice was . . . fuzzy, but still audible.

“I think so?” Ros felt her own voice rather than heard it, but the pulse of the bass had softened a bit, as though it were entering her through her body rather than her ears. It was . . . better, she supposed. She took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m good. Okay, let’s keep going.”

The music got even louder with every step, and when they arrived at the club Ros wondered if her teeth would shudder out of her head. But she followed Poppy and got in the line.

The line for entry stretched out into the street, packed with humans, dwarves, and hobbits alike. Of course there were no elves. If they’d been as thoroughly inundated with the kinds of stories Ros had heard about these places, it was no wonder. She bit back a gasp as she was jostled from behind and clung to Poppy’s hand.

The human bouncer at the door was glancing at IDs and stamping hands. Ros felt for her own ID in her pocket, just to make sure it was still there. When they got to the front of the line, Poppy flashed hers and glared at the bouncer when he took it from her and squinted hard.

“They always check hobbit IDs closely,” she muttered out of the corner of her mouth to Ros. “Can’t imagine why.”

Finally, though, he stamped her hand. She moved a few steps in and stood waiting for Ros. Ros’s fingers were clumsy as she fished for her ID, but the bouncer looked up while waiting, and his eyebrows - and the corners of his mouth - went up. “Hand,” he said.

“Don’t you need my” - 

“Don’t worry about that.” He took her wrist, and it was all Ros could do not to flinch when he brought the stamp down. “We don’t get many elves in here. Enjoy your night.”

“Poppy?” Ros said.

Her roommate’s hand closed around hers again. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Come on.”

Inside the club it was like a different world.

Ros was gladder and gladder of the earplugs with every second, but the bass still felt like it was vibrating in her heart and replacing her heartbeat - which could only be a good thing, because she could only imagine how fast it would be beating otherwise. Lights flashed in crazy crisscrossing patterns that sent blinking waves across her vision even when they weren’t directly on her; she couldn’t make out the pattern on the carpet and the crowds of people of all sizes and races seemed to blend into a single throbbing sea of movement. Every now and then a single sight would resolve itself: a group of hobbits on a corner table, tossing their hair and twerking to the music; a dwarf holding up a vast mug and shouting an incoherent toast. The dance floor in the center seemed like nothing more than a pulsing mass, but occasionally Ros’s eyes would catch on a thread of movement. As she watched, a dwarf girl sidled up to a human man; her hand trailed down his side and then smacked his rear - and in an oddly smooth, sinuous motion he turned against her, his back still to her, and the undulations of his body moved at the same frequency as hers.

Ros looked away and felt a wave of vertigo overtake her. She swallowed hard and swayed, clinging to Poppy’s hand.

Poppy squeezed her hand back, firm and reassuring. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go get a drink.”

They weaved their way through the crowds, Ross clinging to Poppy like a lifeline and letting her friend lead the way. She felt like all her senses had stopped working suddenly, numbed by the plugs in her ears and the lights searing across her eyes and the bass throbbing through her body. She could hardly walk along with Poppy; rather than seeing where she was going, she would seize on the flash of one image, then another. The two bespectacled dwarves tucked in a corner table, seeming engrossed in some intense argument. The hobbit in tiny cutoff shorts angrily waving her stamped hand in the bartender’s face. The two human women in fringed miniskirts and tall, heeled boots grinding against each other - for affection, or for show? - and the men watching them hungrily from next to the pool table.

No elves - at least, none that Ros could see, in her confused glimpses. And she did notice vaguely, as she and Poppy made their way through the crowds, that more and more eyes were turning towards her.

The bar was built high enough that the taller races could lean on it without bending over, but a clever strip had been built beneath it for hobbits and dwarves to stand on. Poppy climbed up now to see over the counter; it felt better to have her head closer to Ros’s own level. Less exposed. “Two Esgaroth Sunrises,” she called over the music.

“Poppy,” murmured Ros. Her status as a lightweight had become notorious already, and she _really_ didn’t feel comfortable drinking here tonight.

“It’s on me!” Poppy yelled back. At first Ros feared she hadn’t understood, but she continued. “You can just sip on it. You have to have something in your hand!”

The bartender pushed their drinks - full to the rim with something orange-pink - across the bar to them and Poppy passed over her credit card. Ros took one of the glasses and sniffed it cautiously, then took a sip.

It was sweeter than she had expected, but the kick of alcohol in her dry throat more powerful. She swallowed and lowered the glass, but didn’t set it down. She understood what Poppy had meant - she was less inclined to fidget with the drink in her hand.

“Hey,” the bartender shouted, leaning over towards them. “This is declining.”

“What?” Poppy yelled back. She pushed herself forward, practically climbing onto the bar to lean over and look at the machine. “It shouldn’t” - 

“Do you need me to” - Ros began, but Poppy shook her head.

“No, this should work, but if it doesn’t I have backup cash. Don’t worry about it!” Still half on top of the bar, she leaned over to the card insert. “Let me look at it.”

Despite her hearing, Ros couldn’t concentrate enough to follow the conversation. She turned around to gaze out at the dance floor, letting Poppy’s voice blend into the background along with the loud music. It was oddly mesmerizing, the sight of the dance floor: all those tiny threads of motion that wove together into a whole tapestry. When you looked at it as a whole and let your eyes unfocus, it was nothing more than a blur of color moving at the same hypnotic beat, but if you paid attention to one person after another, you could begin to see how it all came together.

Ros felt a tap at the small of her back, and turned from where she was watching the dancers, expecting to see Poppy but instead finding -- a man. She blinked in confusion, and the man - maybe college age, but she wasn’t sure - took back his hand from where he had tapped her, and leaned against the bar with a spreading grin.

“Elf?” he shouted over the music.

Ros blinked again.

“Elf?” The man tried again, pointing at his own ears for clarification.

It was kind of a dumb thing to ask - of course she was an elf, and even with the earplugs she had heard him clearly - but more than her bewilderment at being approached she felt immediately uncomfortable under his attention. Should she walk away? Should she talk to him?

The man decided for her, leaning in close to be heard in the crowd.

“Don’t see many elves in here!”

“I’ve been told,” Ros forced herself to reply, thinking of the bouncer that hadn’t even carded her. She felt his warm whiskey breath on her cheek, and hated how much personal space two strangers needed to share just to talk.

“I’m Rhudol,” the man said, offering a handshake that had Ros scrambling to switch her drink to return it.

“Ros,” she replied.

“Nice to meet you,” he shouted. “Kind of a weird name - don’t elvish names usually have like, eighteen syllables and a bunch of silent letters?”

Ros grit her teeth, resolved to try to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

“It’s a nickname, short for Rostinnariel,” she said, though she knew she owed him no explanation. 

Rhudol _laughed_ \- a laugh he clearly thought was charming, but it made Ros’ stomach twist in a way that was definitely not caused by her two sips of Esgaroth Sunrise.

“That’s more like it!” He said, “I took a couple years of Sindarin, was basically fluent for a little while. _Baneth lín síla celair_.”

Ros knew two things: 1. That highschools in Minas Tirith required two terms of basic Sindarin. 2. This self-important pigeon in front of her spoke not one word of it.

Somehow, though, the mingled disdain and discomfort caught against the politeness filter she still hadn’t managed to shake - and instead of emerging as a terse brush-off, or even a polite one, she only squeaked something like, “Ah.”

He didn’t seem to notice - or maybe didn’t care; he seemed still stuck on _elf_. Just like everyone else. “I didn’t think elves partied ever,” he remarked over the noise.

Some did. Ros didn’t, but she was quickly learning that none of this mattered to Rhudol, who was eyeing the wave of her long dark hair with a possessive look she definitely did not like.

“So you must be one of the cool elves,” he was saying, “I could tell you were cool.”

Ros didn’t feel cool. She felt trapped. He was no taller than her, not really, but he was bearing forward in a way that made her lean back, the edge of the bar jamming hard into her protruding shoulder blades. No further to lean, and still he was talking.

“So hey, since I’ve got you here, I’ve been dying to know. Is it _really_ true that elves don’t fuck?”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Ros couldn’t help but splutter, absolutely taken aback by the frankness with which he asked. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

“Like - you all wait until marriage or some shit?”

“We don’t -” Ros started to say, started to defend herself and her race, but he misunderstood her halting explanation as a statement and bulldozed over her.

“Come on, I bet you guys are all secretly freaks. You’re too pretty _not_ to have a wild side, Ros,”

“Sorry about that.” A hand on her waist, a voice in her ear. Poppy. “You doing okay?”

Ros couldn’t work up the words to answer. The man didn’t seem to notice—just kept talking. “You can tell me - you’ve at least gotten to second base, right? Like, you know how girls from Dale are? They say they’re saving themselves but they’ll still give you a blow job because it doesn’t count!”

“Hey!” Poppy’s voice went up at least half an octave, slicing through the drone of the music like a blade through butter. Her hand at Ros’s waist tightened, thrumming with tension. “What the _fuck_ did you just say to her?”

He looked down at her - _down_ at her, over his nose, and squinted.

“We’re talking here, fun-size.”

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” she retorted, whip-fast, before Ros could even try to defend her. “Leave her alone.”

“Or what? You’ll make me?” He laughed and shook his head, leaning in closer to Ros. “Look, if you want a real party, ditch kid sister here and come with me.” He reached out to touch her wrist, and she was too frozen to pull back or slap him away. “We can—“

He never got the chance to touch her. Poppy exploded into motion beside her, actually launching herself off the bar-strip, her fist swinging forward to make direct contact with his eye.

The punch landed with a dull thud, a visceral sound Ros had never heard before outside of movies. He grunted and stumbled backwards, and Poppy backed up to hover protectively in front of Ros. “Damn right I’ll make you,” she growled. “Get out of here.”

If this had been a movie, it would have been the moment all the music cut out to make room for the sound of shouting - but that heartbeat-stealing bass just kept thudding on, people kept dancing all around the room. Only the people near them had even seen what happened. For a moment, Ros nearly panicked - what if he took a swing at Poppy in return? Were they about to be in a bar fight? She’d never been in a fight in her life. But he just backed away, cupping a hand over his eye and glaring at them, maybe because of the whoops that had broken out from some of the burly dwarf women standing next to them. Those same dwarf women pushed in between him and where Poppy and Ros still hovered at the bar, and then he was lost in the crowd.

Poppy turned back to Ros. “Sorry,” she shouted over the music, a little breathless. “I took my eyes off you for a second.” She smiled, an invitation for Ros to laugh, to brush it off, to thank her.

She should. But when she tried to force the corners of her mouth to turn up, tried to force out a laugh, to her own horror she felt her lip tremble.

Poppy’s face softened. She grabbed Ros’s free hand and squeezed it hard. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Very gently she reached around to take Ros’s drink out of her other hand. “Do you want any more of this?”

Ros shook her head. The few sips she had taken churned uneasily, cold in her stomach. She wasn’t sure what she wanted; nothing quite felt real or right to her right now.

Poppy weighed the glass in her hand and glared into the crowd for a moment as though seriously considering storming through it to try and find Rhudol and throw it in his face. Instead, she shook her head, brought it to her own mouth, and downed the contents in two swallows.

“Okay,” she said, wiping her mouth and tugging on Ros’s hand. “Let’s go.”

The damp night air was blessedly cool against Ros's overheated face, and the city street felt silent and empty after the noisy press of the club, even though there were still plenty of people milling around and the bass still throbbed in Ros's chest. Maybe this was how people got used to the city, because after the bar, it was almost peaceful.

She pulled out her earplugs when they had made it about a block away, and Poppy looked up at her.

"How are you doing?" she asked softly.

Ros rubbed at her ears; Poppy's voice sounded tinny and faraway after the constant pounding of sensation. "I'm - I'm okay," she said, though she still felt the embarrassing urge to cry.

"Let's get you home," said Poppy. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the screen. "We made it about ten minutes, at least."

"Sorry," said Ros quietly. "You wanted half an hour."

"I wanted you to have fun, not be traumatized. When something like that happens, we cut our losses." Poppy sighed. "I didn't realize how they'd be to you. I think hobbits don't get the worst of it. I'm sorry - I should have paid better attention."

"No - no, you were great." Outside of the club, Ros could even manage a weak watery smile at the memory of it. "Like my personal superhero."

Poppy giggled. "Well, nobody treats my damsels like that."

The walk back to their dorm was only a few minutes longer, but Ros could still feel the music pounding in her long after it had faded from earshot; afterimages still flickered across her eyes. A faint ache had settled in at the base of her skull, and she couldn't tell if it had come from the loud music, the bright lights, or the tension in her neck and shoulders.

"You get first shower," said Poppy when they made it back into their room. "I'll make some tea."

Ros spent longer in the shower than she had meant to, letting the hot water soothe the tension in her neck and the ache of the hairpins from her head, scrubbing the smell of sweat and alcohol and perfume from her skin. She wished she could as easily scrub away the thoughts, though; at the time she had been too horrified and confused and upset to really take in the perversions of intimacy in what he had said. She had thought sex ed classes were supposed to cover elves as well as other races, but the thought that people might not believe - the implications of what he had said - 

This was the reason she hadn't wanted to go to a club! She lathered her hair with another frantic coat of shampoo in an effort to forget it.

The headache was worse when she finally turned off the shower, remembering just in time not to use all the hot water so that Poppy would have some too. When she finally opened the bathroom door amidst a cloud of steam, wrapped in her fluffy bathrobe over her pajamas, she saw that Poppy had been busy. Their little coffee table had been spread with her full tea service, complete with little cream pitcher and sugar bowl, pile of cookies, and teacups waiting to be filled.

"I won't keep you up too long if you want to go to bed," said Poppy, noting Ros's questioning look, "but I didn't think we should end the night on that note."

And for some reason, that was what made Ros dissolve into tears.

She hid her face in the sleeve of her bathrobe, but there was no hiding the hitching breaths or tiny whimpers. And there was no hiding from Poppy, not ever. Her roommate rushed around the coffee table to sit next to her. “Oh, honey, shh, it’s okay, I’m sorry,” she said, and Ros felt a hand come to rest tentatively on her back, and then withdraw. “Are you okay if I touch you now?”

“Y-yeah,” Ros hiccupped, trying hard to swallow the sobs. But Poppy rubbed her back and let her cry, bent over her own lap with her face still pressed into her bathrobe. “I’m sorry,” she managed. “I did - didn’t want to ruin your night.”

“It was supposed to be _your_ night,” Poppy corrected. “And _I’m_ so sorry about what happened. I didn’t want it to be like that.”

“I didn’t either,” Ros sniffled. “I just - he just - and I didn’t know what to say - and now you’re being so nice to me!” Coherence beyond that eluded her; her tears were running low, but she couldn’t steady her breathing.

“Well, I thought _someone_ ought to be nice to you tonight.” Poppy kept rubbing her back in soothing circles. “What all did he say to you?”

Ros shuddered, remembering. “He wasn’t always - he kept asking about elf customs. Like my name, and Sindarin, and then - marriage.”

“Literally the exact reason elves don’t come to clubs, and he decided to scare you away from one with it.” Ros could practically hear Poppy rolling her eyes. “I’m really sorry, Ros. I didn’t expect that.”

Ros removed her face from her bathrobe at last and rubbed her swollen eyes. “It wasn’t your fault,” she sniffed. “You saved me.”

“Look,” Poppy said, shuffling around to face her. “I won’t say he wasn’t being a creep, because he definitely was. And I won’t say you weren’t right to be worried about your safety, because you absolutely were. But you saw those dwarf girls, right? And all the other people who helped get in between us?”

“Yeah . . .”

“There are gross people at clubs for sure,” Poppy said. “But there are also people like me and them, who want to have a good time and don’t want to see another person being intimidated or upset. Sometimes you just have to get their attention, is all.”

“Like you did.” Ros remembered Poppy yelling, before she’d even swung - raising her voice to draw attention to them, rather than just to scare off Rhudol. She wished she hadn’t told him her name.

“Exactly.” Poppy squeezed her arm and nodded. “Next time, don’t be afraid to make a scene.”

“Next time?” Ros squeaked. The thought made her want to hide in her bathrobe and never emerge again.

“Not until you’re willing, if ever,” Poppy promised. A slow, thoughtful smile began to spread across her face. “Maybe we should teach you how to throw a punch first.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little interlude with Legolas on the train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This vignette written entirely by DHK!

It was never elves — usually hobbits, excitable and warm by nature, and often men, always modern and up with the trends. Even the occasional young dwarf might approach Legolas in the street — but it was never elves. Elves, as a whole, were not impressed by him in the least. Well, maybe those elves in botany at MTU that shared a floor (and bathroom) with Gim where his office was in Main 401, but that was because they liked the spider ferns Legolas would bring his husband on occasion. Those academic types aside though, elves never approached him.

That’s why it was so surprising when a young elleth tapped him on the shoulder on the Green Line (express out of service nights and weekends, only local stops all the way out to Ithilien).

“Excuse me - are you Legolas Lasgalen?”

Legolas had heard her, but he took his earbud out anyway to be polite - sometimes fans were weird, but for the most part they were fine, and if he wasn’t running late somewhere he was happy to indulge them a little bit. He gave her his charming Instagram-smile and an awkward little chuckle. “Ah - yep, that’s me.”

But she didn’t say anything else, didn’t gush, didn’t ask for a picture. There was a beat - a just-too-long silence in which their train trundled and clunked along, and they blinked at each other.

“My roommate follows you on all of your social media platforms,” she finally said.

“Oh … Great!” Legolas said, still smiling politely but not too sure how to respond. After all, she hadn’t exactly complimented him - for all he knew this elf’s roommate wasn’t a fan and hate-watched all his content. He couldn’t help but notice she looked uncomfortable too, as if she might be forcing herself to have this conversation. Which was - weird. As a rule, his kind generally didn’t force themselves to do anything. (What was that famous saying? — elves and cats will do as they please?)

But the poor thing’s cheeks were so pink he threw her a bone. She couldn’t have been more than 50..

“Are you a student?” He asked her kindly, and the mysterious stranger’s face lit up and panicked all at once.

“Yes - I’m a first year at Minas Tirith University,” she said.

“Oh nice, my husband teaches there. What’s your major?” He crossed one long leg over the other at the knee, took the other ear bud out and turned his body towards her.

“I’m still...,” she seemed to hesitate, “Er, undecided.”

Legolas softened from polite to sympathetic - he knew that sheepish look all too well. It was the look he’d given all of his dad’s friends when forced to explain that he wouldn’t be going to university at all, let alone the question of major. Elves usually had a five year plan for this kind of thing - a ten year plan - a thirty year plan. This elf probably got a _we’re-only-concerned-for-you_ earful from her parents on the reg.

“Well, that’s ok, you’ve got time,” Legolas took up the conversation, “And hey, you never know what life is gonna throw at you or where you’re gonna end up. A friend of mine studied parks management and ecology, and now he’s an up-and-coming in local government - weird, right?”

This gesture of a casual anecdote seemed to make her more comfortable, so he dug in.

“It’s all about the experience, anyway. Learning your limits, meeting new people,”

“Minas Tirith is very different from Eryn Lasgalen,” she admitted.

“Oh, get out! I’m from Northwood,”

“I’m from Central!”

And so she slowly opened up as the Green Line trundled its way east. She was a sweet girl, Legolas thought. Definitely a little uptight - but that would relax with time. Minas Tirith did that to folks, threw them headfirst into a hundred sticky situations that turned into a hundred stories - sometimes scary, sometimes funny, but always with gained wisdom. He learned that her parents were supportive but “worried” (he could relate), that she loved history (he couldn’t relate), and that she had finally made a very good friend.

She had gotten through a story about a very awkward first time in a club - and Legolas could see how much an elf from Lasgalen had already begun changing into the elf from MTU in front of him, because she was even laughing at the memory of it. Legolas remembered what the student bars were like - he knew he wouldn’t be laughing at all if he had been in her shoes.

“Leave it to a hobbit to throw hands with a scrub four times her size! Your roommate sounds like a riot,” Legolas was saying, and he couldn’t help but think of a few hobbit friends of his own.

“She’s certainly something,” the elleth said fondly. “She’ll be so jealous I met you, she really is a big fan.”

Well, she was new in town. Less and less homesick by the day, it seemed, but Legolas wanted to do his part to help make her feel welcome.

He leaned in conspiratorially.

“Would you like to make her _really_ jealous?” He asked, and flashed her a mischievous wink.

She looked confused, but handed over her phone wordlessly when he gestured to it. He flipped open the camera and swiped left to the video - flipped his golden hair attractively over his shoulder like a horse (Gimli’s own assessment), cocked his head, and leaned in close to her, tapping the RECORD button. It was when his lips halted around the word _suilad_ that he realized - at some point the pair had slipped comfortably into Sindarin. Though he had infrequent occasion to speak it these days, he hadn’t even noticed.

“Hey Poppy, girl!” he said, switching back to Westron and his Youtube Voice. He tipped his jaw up and adjusted his hold so they were both equally in frame, putting on the air of coolly casual, as if this were an everyday event, “Wanted to slide into your DMs for a mo’ to tell ya I’m just vibin’ on the Fab Train with my bestie —“

“Ros,” she giggled.

He saw in the camera that she was grinning wide at his antics, and he laughed too.

“Ros,” he repeated, matter of factly, “So keep punching dudes and keep those wings sharp, babe, we’ll catch ya later!” - and he finished it off with a wink and a kiss, while his new friend held a hand over her mouth to hide her delight.

He handed the phone back over, and the elf - Ros - was still giggling as she tapped out a text to Poppy and sent it.

When the train finally groaned to a stop at Henneth Annûn, Legolas stood. He grabbed his canvas bag, made sure he had his phone and train card to exit the station, then looked down at Ros. She was looking back up at him with a gentle grin, relaxed and soft and so different from when she had tapped him on the shoulder before.

“It was nice meeting you, Ros,” he said to her, and before he could stop himself, he bent to give her a quick hug. “Best of luck to you - you’re gonna do awesome.”

Ros beamed up at him and Legolas knew she’d be fine - better than fine.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evening conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by some of DHK's Gimli art - embedded later in the passage.

“Yes.”

Ros’s voice came out of nowhere, floating across the dark bedroom. Or - well, Poppy knew where it came _from_ , where she lay opposite Poppy in her own extra-long twin, so maybe it would be more accurate to say she didn’t know _why_. They’d both been quiet for a few minutes, mutually doing their silent pre-bedtime internet wind-down, and as far as she knew Ros wasn’t talking to anyone - but that _yes_ had sounded pretty decisive, like an answer to a question Poppy hadn’t asked.

“What?” she mumbled, wondering if she was sleepier than she had realized. Or if Ros had actually drifted off to sleep and then woken herself from a dream with the word. But no, when she looked up over her phone and across the room, Ros was looking back at her, her eyes alert in the reflected bluish light of her own phone screen.

“Yes,” said Ros again, “it is weird.”

“What’s weird?” asked Poppy. Had they been having a conversation earlier she had forgotten about?

“The thing about taking Architecture 101 so you can look at Dr. Glóinul’s arms,” said Ros. Somehow her earnest tone and poker face made the sentence sound even more ridiculous.

“The thing about - _oh_. You mean my Tweet?” Ros had hardly any social media herself, but she knew all Poppy’s handles and she was almost a professional lurker by this point. Poppy should get used to this, she supposed. “Come on, I was kidding. I didn’t even say his name in the post!”

“Which is a good thing,” said Ros, still totally serious. “I bet Legolas searches his name on the platforms. I would.”

Poppy couldn’t help laughing. “I don’t think everyone takes social media quite as seriously as you do, Ros.” It was probably a good thing that her roommate confined herself to lurking and didn’t have any handles of her own - she would be a menace. “Besides, he wouldn’t think I’m coming for his man. I bet he’d _approve_ of me wanting to look. Did you see that picture he posted recently?”

“Yeah,” said Ros. “But I didn’t get it. Holding tiny things - is that some kind of innuendo?”

“Elves!” Poppy laughed again, but honestly it was too adorable. “He was talking about his hands. There might be a little bit of innuendo in it, I guess, but mostly it was just a thirst post.”

“Like yours.” At last Ros cracked a smile. “But more specific about the intended recipient.”

“Exactly. I’m not gonna mention Dr. Glóinul on Twitter - at least, not by name.” Poppy grinned. “Those arms, though . . .”

“Poppy!”

“Relax,” Poppy said. “I’m not actually going to do it.” She did have elective space for it in her schedule, but she’d never really been all that interested in architecture anyway. “Probably.”

“Poppy!” squealed Ros again. “You know he actually intersects with some stuff in _my_ major. If I ever have a class with him, you’ll have _ruined_ me; I’ll never be able to look him in the eyes!”

“Relax,” said Poppy. “RateMyProfessor says he’s a great teacher; I’m sure you’d stop feeling awkward in no time.” She paused, but couldn’t resist the spark of wickedness. “It also says his hotness ratings are off the charts” - 

_Flump_. She couldn’t finish her sentence; Ros’s pillow hit her squarely in the face. She hadn’t even seen her throw it! Elves and their reflexes. She squawked in affront and tried to throw it back, but of course Ros snatched it out of the air and hugged it to her chest. “You deserved that,” she said, but she was laughing too.

“Fine,” Poppy sighed. “I’ll stop. For now. But I won’t stop posting stuff like that on Twitter.”

“As long as you know I won’t stop seeing it,” warned Ros.

“I know.” Poppy grinned, turning onto her side and settling herself more comfortably into her pillow. “That’s half the fun.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first spring day on campus.

Ros practically flung open the dorm doors, her whole body tilting towards the sky, and took a deep, deep breath of the fresh air.

Oh, she could get drunk on this feeling alone - the air felt so clean, light and fresh, the spring-scent of wet soil and green things, the scuffles of animals poking their heads out of their dens. After the stuffy dorm air, the stale-person scent hanging heavy in their room from keeping the windows closed for so long, it felt like a cleansing shower.

“You look like a rabbit with your nose twitching like that,” teased Poppy beside her. 

“It is rabbit season,” Ros said dreamily. “If that was an insult, it wasn’t a very good one.”

“No insult,” Poppy assured her. “Though my mom might not agree - they always eat her lettuce in the summer.” She laughed a little. “Then she yells at them and they take their sweet time hopping away; they know she won’t do anything to them.”

“Well,” said Ros, “your mom’s garden is safe from me.” She did feel like a rabbit, though - sniffing the air for the new scent of spring. “But I might just hop.” She bounced twice on her toes, her backpack jouncing against her shoulders in belated rhythm, then had to reach up and free her hair from the straps. Poppy laughed at her again, and this time Ros joined in. There was no reason not to be happy today! The grass was green, the trees were singing, the sun was out for the first time in what felt like months, and _finally_ it was warm enough that Poppy had consented to take their homework outside.

She could have come out on her own, of course - and had, at times, when she couldn’t stand to be indoors with the windows closed any longer. But it was better to _both_ be outside.

“Come on!” she said. “Let’s go find a place to sit.”

They made their way to the quad along the little hobbit-paths, shortcuts of dirt and stepping stones between the longer winding footpath, all labeled with strict signage: _no littering, no dogs_. Pets weren’t technically allowed on campus anyway, but non-students walked here sometimes, and some of the older grades who lived off-campus had dogs. Poppy had treated Ros to many a rant about inconsiderate dog-walkers who didn’t pick up after their pets, but there were no such incidents today.

Ros trusted Poppy to lead her - she was too busy gazing around them to focus on the path in front of her feet, calling out greetings to the robins who whistled their hellos and to the acacia buds trembling on the verge of opening. Just another week or two, maybe, and campus would be an explosion of yellow flowers. And then the bees would come out . . . Ros had heard there was an apiary club run jointly by hobbits and elves, though she didn’t know Poppy’s feelings on bees and hadn’t yet brought up the subject.

Well! She would find out soon, now that the weather was finally warm enough that Poppy would come outside with her!

They picked an open spot on the green, near but not quite underneath the spreading boughs of an olive tree. Poppy dropped her backpack on the ground and stretched luxuriously, pointing and curling her toes in the grass. “Okay, this is nice,” she admitted.

“Isn’t it?” Ros set her own backpack aside and stretched out full-length on her back in the grass, squinting up at the sky until the distinct clouds blurred together into a blue-white mush with pinpricks of sun. The grass beneath her tickled through her clothing, and if she were at home in Lasgalen she would have taken off her shirt to feel it better, but that behavior would draw the wrong kind of attention here. Instead she splayed her arms out to her sides and rolled her head from side to side.

“I take it back,” said Poppy. “You’re not a rabbit, you’re a dog. Luxuriating in the sun.”

“Pick one and stick to it,” said Ros absently. “But if I’m a dog, I promise to be very well behaved.”

Poppy laughed. “Come on, get up. I need a latte before I can start studying.”

“I’m okay here,” murmured Ros. The grass was humming to her, and if she stayed still enough a sparrow might venture over to say hello. “I’ll hold the spot for us.”

“If you insist. I’ll get you a boba?”

“Mmm.” Sweet and cool for a spring afternoon. “Yes, please. I’ll buy next time.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Ros could hear Poppy rummaging in her backpack, though she didn’t turn her head to look. “It’ll work itself out eventually. What flavor?”

“Mmm . . . I don’t care.” The sun was a bit more than a pinprick now and Ros rolled her head to one side to avoid it, watching in the distance as a group of dwarves argued over something in the grass between them.

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Poppy rose to her feet again, stretched with the snapping of joints and the rustling of fabric, and the padding of bare feet grew fainter as she made her way across the quad towards the caf.

Ros lay there a little longer, trying to decide whether she was drowsy or whether she’d never felt so awake, and then the sense of their words finally seeped in on her. Flavor - what flavor - wait - 

“Mango!” she yelled, twisting around and half-sitting, propping herself on an elbow to see Poppy’s disappearing back. “Mango, please!”

In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of Poppy’s laugh.

* * *

* * *

“Oh my gosh, _Poppy_.”

“What?” Poppy clicked (a little guiltily) away from Lalalir and back to the tab with her reading before looking over at Ros.

But Ros hadn’t caught her - or if she had, she didn’t care. She had actually _closed_ her own textbook and was staring avidly at something on her phone. “The guy who was bothering you the other day used to go out with the TA for my international politics class.”

That was - wow. There was so much to unpack in that sentence alone. “How did you find out?” was all she could think to ask, even though it didn’t feel like the most important question.

“Oh.” Ros looked a little shifty. “Um. It was on her Instagram.”

“On her Instagram _when_?”

Ros held out the phone for Poppy to see. Poppy frowned down at the picture - the woman in the picture wouldn’t have been recognizable as Ros’s TA if she hadn’t known; it seemed she left off the glasses and button-ups for poorly-lit club pictures. And with his arm around her - yes, that was the guy all right: short for a man (which was probably why he’d hit on Poppy, come to think of it), same over-gelled hair, same slimy smile. She _knew_ he’d given her a bad vibe.

To be fair, though, the date on the picture was five months ago. “Have you been scrolling through her entire profile?”

“No!” Ros protested. “Well, yes. But only because - she said something in class the other day and I wanted to see if she had any pictures, and then I saw a reference to him that looked familiar, and I wanted to find out” - 

“Wow, I suddenly feel so much less bad about not doing homework.” Poppy shuffled on her elbows farther away from her computer and turned her full attention to the phone. “You’re sort of terrifying, you know that? It’s a good thing you don’t do anything with your stalking skills. Wait.” A gleam in the picture had caught her eye. “Is _she_ wearing that necklace he had on the other day?” The gaudy gold chain was distinctive, now that it had caught her eye.

“She is!” Ros put a hand over her mouth. “So she gave it to him and now he’s using it to try to pick up other girls? How tacky can you get?”

“Or he took it from her,” Poppy pointed out. “Or they did that couple thing where they bought matching ones.” Though she personally felt like that was the sort of thing that only worked for friends; doing it with a partner bordered on creepy. This TA was rapidly losing points in her book.

In Ros’s, too, it seemed. “Dating is so weird,” she said, making a face.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Miss Elf.” Poppy clicked to the next picture and was nearly blinded by the shine of hair gel. “ _Wow_ that hairstyle. She seems so smart when you talk about her - how did she go out with that?”

“I know!” said Ros. “At least you have better taste.”

“You know me,” said Poppy, “my radar is impeccable.” She clicked to the next picture. “I hope I don’t like any of these on accident . . .”

“Don’t you dare!” Ros squealed, but she made no move to knock the phone out of Poppy’s hand.

All thoughts of studying were forgotten, of course - but what had they _really_ expected, anyway?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ros and Poppy celebrate finishing finals week . . . but not the fact that soon they'll be saying goodbye for the summer.

Poppy felt like her brain had been strained, shaken, and then stir-fried. Whoever had come up with the invention of finals week needed to be stabbed with a blunt pencil. Number _three_ , just to rub it in. Was there such a thing as number three pencils?

But at least - at _last_ \- she was done. Math was behind her forever, provided she hadn't failed this test; Westron Lit 101 was finished; Music of Harad and Rhún: Eastern Traditions had played its final note. She was done!

None of that made her any less tired.

Ros had finished her finals earlier in the day, which Poppy had hated her for up until now. Because when she finally slouched into the room, ready to throw herself onto her bed, Ros was waiting for her on the beanbag chair with a huge grin.

"You made it!" she cheered. "It's over!"

"At last," Poppy sighed. "I am so fried, though."

"I know." Ros bounced up onto her knees and crawled over to the coffee table. "But I got our provisions all ready. White wine and pink lemonade, _Amral-Oh No!_ in one tab, and I have an order to Gaffer Gamgee's all cued up and ready for you to give the word."

"You're an angel." Poppy bent down to look at the screen. "Pork pie, chef’s salad, and black-and-white cake. I love you. Let's add an order of potato wedges; I could eat so many of those right now."

“Sounds good.” Ros gestured at the screen and Poppy scrolled the menu and clicked on the potato wedges, selecting “extra-large” for good measure. Gaffer’s had the best Shire food in Minas Tirith, it was like being home without having to put forth all the effort of cooking herself. “Okay, I’m going to take a shower while we wait for it to get here. Do you need the bathroom?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just wait for the food.”

When she emerged from the shower about twenty minutes later, Poppy felt much more like a person. There was something about a nice hot shower that helped make transitions easier, like she was scrubbing away the remnants of math from her skin and now that she was clean she could finally acknowledge that the semester was over.

And yes, it was only five in the afternoon, but the pajamas were coming out.

Their food hadn’t arrived yet when she left the bathroom, but Ros had changed into pajamas as well and had poured them each a glass of pink lemonade with white wine. “Day drinking?” Poppy teased her.

“I’ll take it slow!” Ros said, holding her glass up to Poppy and taking a tiny sip as if to prove it. She would, Poppy knew - a glass that size could take Ros hours to finish, and it was a good thing, too. Poppy hadn’t partied with enough elves to know if it was all elves or just Ros, but her roommate was one of the most egregious lightweights she’d ever met.

They arranged themselves on the beanbag, which - since it was made for two big people - fit them both with space to spare, with Ros’s laptop up on the coffee table. The season finale of _Amral-Oh No!_ had aired a couple of days ago, but they still had several episodes to catch up on, since they’d stopped their guilty pleasure-watching when work ramped up for the end of the semester. Poppy was glad the show had finished before the school year, though - what would she have done if it kept going into the summer? Watched it alone?

She cringed away from that reminder that this night was not only a celebration but also a goodbye. Ros was going back to Lasgalen and Poppy back to Little Shire for the summer, and Ros didn’t have a great Internet connection at home, so it would be harder to keep in touch. And sure, they’d made their plans to live together again next year, but - it would be a long time apart, when Poppy had gotten so used to seeing Ros every day.

The opening credits of the show started playing, with the usual montage of mashed-together interview clips of dwarves talking about why they’d decided to come on the show to look for their true love. The best Poppy could tell, most dwarves thought this show was complete trash (which it definitely was) and she would _never_ watch it with a dwarf. Watching it with Ros, who had her own hangups about true love, was enough built-in social commentary for her - but she was also amused that Ros seemed to have become just as addicted to it as she was, even if she did complain the whole time they were watching.

Ros’s phone buzzed about five minutes into the first episode and she hit pause. “Oh - food is here!” She bounced to her feet. “I’ll go get it; you’re still recovering.”

“Ah, yes,” said Poppy. “Those finals, which left me incapable of walking down the hall.”

“I mean, you can get it if you want to” - 

“No, no,” said Poppy hurriedly, “you go ahead.”

Ros laughed and grabbed her cloak. It was the only elvish clothing that was part of her regular wardrobe, and that only because she typically wrapped it around herself when she wanted to leave the room without changing clothes. She was a funny sight for a moment, in her tank top and tiny shorts with a woven silvery cloak draped over her shoulders, and then she wrapped it tight in front so that the clothes underneath it were no longer visible. “Be back in a second,” she said. “Don’t play it until I’m back!”

“Hurry, then,” said Poppy, and Ros was out the door in a flash.

She returned a few minutes later with a biodegradable bag in each hand. Grease from the food was already seeping through both the containers and the bags, and Poppy’s stomach grumbled at the heavenly smell. “Yes,” she groaned, taking one of the bags from Ros and fumbling at the first container, whose contents shifted and slid enough to let her know that - yes. These were the potato wedges, fried crispy and golden and so inviting that she couldn’t wait.

They were steaming hot inside, of course, and she yelped as the first bite seared the roof of her mouth just behind her teeth, covering her mouth with a hand and breathing steam until it was finally cool enough to chew. Ros laughed at her, but it was worth it.

She could have eaten all of the food that fast, but the food from Gaffer Gamgee’s deserved to be savored, so she forced herself to slow down, help Ros arrange the containers on the floor between them so they could help themselves with forks and fingers when they started the show again. 

Poppy had had her fair share of nights out this year; she’d visited parties at just about every location they were hosted. But this, she thought - sitting on the floor with Ros eating excellent food they hadn’t had to cook, watching trashy TV, and watching her roommate get progressively more giggly on a single glass of white wine - was the perfect way to spend an evening.

Like the food, she would have to savor it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is getting cabin fever in quarantine, and Poppy and Ros discover Lasgalen folk songs on a song and dance app.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some covid-inspired content in this chapter (though covid itself is never mentioned, just quarantine). Based on some of DHK's recent art, in which Legolas starts the sea shanty trend with Lasgalen folk songs.

The problem with online learning - well, okay. There were many problems with online learning, Poppy amended: it was  _ boring, _ for one, without other classmates to talk to or even any attempt at hands-on learning, and even the teachers seemed to think so, too. Then there was the fact that even in “synchronous” classes she could never pay attention to the professor, too busy watching her own Zâram window and noticing the pimple she’d neglected to cover - and that one student who invariably loudly snacked on chips right into their microphone, and the professor didn’t even seem interested in asking them to mute themselves - 

All right. There were a lot of problems with online learning. But the main one, or at least the main one in this moment, was that it was impossible to focus on a discussion forum when the whole of the Internet was just right  _ there. _ Sorry, but LaLaLir was just much more entertaining than whatever Maedor was trying to say about the inherent anti-man bias in the narrative of Numenor’s fall. Poppy could sympathize with the problem of being a man in Gondor when the whole place was built for you and you didn’t have anything to complain about, but that didn’t mean you had to go searching for bias against you just to feel special.

Ooh, something new from Legolas Lasgalen on LaLaLir . . .

Poppy felt a flash of guilt as she clicked on it, but only a flash - especially as she saw the indication that Maedor was starting yet another post. She’d started following Legolas first year in the first few weeks of her friendship with Ros, wanting to understand her new roommate better - and although Legolas’s content was about as different from Ros’s general everything as it was possible to be, it was still a good time. Especially during quarantine, as he’d started posting much more on LaLaLir - goofy things sometimes, but the occasional snippet of song that showed real musical talent and made Poppy wonder why he wasn’t using that as his main brand. But she wasn’t complaining, either way.

Today’s video seemed like a bit of both, actually - he was in pajama pants and perched uncomfortably on his toilet, but he was also playing a fancy-looking stringed instrument and singing something that sounded - well, at odds with the tongue-in-cheek translation of the lyrics he’d posted over it.

It  _ was _ a bop, though, Poppy had to admit, finding herself nodding in time.

“Hey!” A squeak of bedsprings from the other room, where Ros had probably been actually doing her homework. She wasn’t anymore, though, padding out into the living room with her hair falling half out of its sloppy bun. “Is that Gwîn-Gwedh-Gobel?”

To be honest, Poppy couldn’t make out even so much as the sounds of the words Legolas was singing, so she just turned her laptop so Ros could see better. “Maybe?” she offered. “He does say Mirkwood folk in the description, so if you recognize it” - 

“Oh, it totally is!” Ros actually clasped her hands together in front of her like someone in one of the many over-dramatic shows they’d binged since quarantine began. “And he’s playing the dangtân! I haven’t heard this since I was a kid; I probably haven’t thought about it in years. Let me see if I still remember” - She bopped up and down for a moment, and then - to Poppy’s surprise, though she shouldn’t be - she burst into what must be the chorus right along with him.

It seemed to match up pretty well, to Poppy’s untrained ears anyway, and she laughed as Ros sang along, breaking into a little shuffling dance as well that probably didn’t make their downstairs neighbors too happy - but all that mattered was that Poppy was having the time of her life. “Amazing, showstopping, spectacular,” she said when the video ended and Ros giggled her way through the last few bars. “So was his translation accurate, then?”

“Basically,” Ros said. “It’s an old kids’ song - although I didn’t realize how dirty it was when I was a kid, of course.” Poppy snorted. “There are a ton of parts, too - there’s this one, then there’s the bride’s part, the parents, the brother” - 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Poppy interrupted, clicking on a link in the comments. She didn’t follow Tauriel, but she knew the name from Legolas’s accounts. “Is this the bride part?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Ros clapped her hands. “I’ve never heard this folk song outside of Lasgalen before - I have to send this link to my friends from home. I don’t know if they’ll love it or hate it. We used to sing it in rounds when I was a kid - I always liked the part of the guy who owns the wine cellar.”

Poppy raised her eyebrows. “This is . . . a very elaborate song.”

“What can I say, we go all out in Lasgalen,” Ros giggled. “Here, I’ll sing you the wine cellar guy part; you’ll see why I like it. He’s basically complaining about how these elves are drinking him out of house and home and he’s going to steal their goats if they don’t pay him.” And she launched into an enthusiastic rendition of what Poppy could only assume was the verse in question, complete with clapping hands and those skip-shuffling dance steps.

It was a delight to watch, actually, and Poppy pushed her laptop back, discussion forum forgotten. “Ros,” she said, the idea blooming in her mind even as she spoke, “you have to add that part onto theirs. Please?”

Ros stopped her shuffling immediately. “I can’t!” she said, getting that terrified expression she got every time Legolas Lasgalen was brought up - a holdover from those few months last year that Poppy knew she shouldn't laugh at but did anyway.

She restrained her laugh this time for better persuasive power, though. “Come on,” she pleaded. “It’ll be so funny! You’re his audience, right here! Plus folk songs are a whole thing right now; people are gonna love it!”

“I don’t even have an account,” protested Ros weakly.

“You can use mine! I’ll say I made you do it.” Poppy put on her best pleading eyes. “It won’t be weird; this is what people  _ do _ on LaLaLir. And why would he be posting Lasgalen folk songs if he didn’t want other wood-elves to see?”

“I bet half the wood-elves who see this are dying of embarrassment right now,” Ros pointed out.

“Maybe they’re pretending to, but I bet they love it. Just like you did.” Poppy tried to intensify the pleading eyes. “Roooosssss . . .”

Ros wavered, then gave in all at once. “Fine,” she said. “Fine, but only because I love you. And only if you put the caption that you bullied me into it.”

“I will, I promise,” said Poppy. “But you know you want to.”

Ros flapped a hand in dismissal, but the tiny smile creeping onto her face said all Poppy needed to know.


End file.
